Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Crawl |
CrawlNoun1. A very slow movement; "the traffic advanced at a crawl". 2. A swimming stroke; arms are moved alternately overhead accompanied by a flutter kick. 3. A slow creeping mode of locomotion (on hands and knees or dragging the body); "a crawl was all that the injured man could manage"; "the traffic moved at a creep". Verb1. Move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground; "The crocodile was crawling along the riverbed". 2. Feel as if crawling with insects; "My skin crawled--I was terrified". 3. Be crawling with; "The old cheese was crawling with maggots". 4. Show submission or fear. 5. Swim by doing the crawl; "European children learn the breast stroke; they often don't know how to crawl". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "crawl" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1374. (references) |
Note: Crawl \Crawl\ (kr[add]l), intransitive verb. [imperative past participle Crawled (kr[add]ld); present participle verb or noun Crawling.]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream that you are crawling on the ground, and hurt your hand, you may expect humiliating tasks to be placed on you. To crawl over rough places and stones, indicates that you have not taken proper advantage of your opportunities. A young woman, after dreaming of crawling, if not very careful of her conduct, will lose the respect of her lover. To crawl in mire with others, denotes depression in business and loss of credit. Your friends will have cause to censure you. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
General | Text moving horizontally across the bottom of a video screen. Source: European Union. (references) |
Sports & Leisure | Used synonymously with crawl, but refers to any type of stroke to be used in certain competitive swimming events. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Synonyms: CrawlSynonyms: crawling (n), creeping (n), front crawl (n), cower (v), creep (v), cringe (v), fawn (v), grovel (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Cold | Chill, freeze. (render cold); horripilate, make the skin crawl, give one goose flesh. |
Redundancy | Verb: superabound, overabound; know no bounds, swarm; meet one at every turn; creep with, crawl with, bristle with; overflow; run over, flow over, well over, brim over; run riot; overrun, overstock, overlay, overcharge, overdose, overfeed, overburden, overload, overdo, overwhelm, overshoot the mark; (go beyond); surcharge, supersaturate, gorge, glut, load, drench, whelm, inundate, deluge, flood; drug, drug the market; hepatize. |
Regression | Verb: recede, regrade, return, revert, retreat, retire; retrograde, retrocede; back out; back down; balk; crawfish, crawl; withdraw; rebound; go back, come back, turn back, hark back, draw back, fall back, get back, put back, run back; lose ground; fall astern, drop astern; backwater, put about; backtrack, take the back track; veer round; double, wheel, countermarch; ebb, regurgitate; jib, shrink, shy. |
Servility | Sneak, crawl, crouch, cower, sponge, truckle to, grovel, fawn, lick the feet of, kiss the hem of one's garment, kiss one's ass, suck up. |
Slowness | Verb: move slowly; adVerb: creep, crawl, lag, slug, drawl, linger, loiter, saunter; plod, trudge, stump along, lumber; trail, drag; dawdle; (be inactive); grovel, worm one's way, steal along; job on, rub on, bundle on; toddle, waddle, wabble, slug, traipse, slouch, shuffle, halt, hobble, limp, caludicate, shamble; flag, falter, trotter, stagger; mince, step short; march in slow time, march in funeral procession; take one's time; hang fire; (be late). |
Tergiversation | Apostatize, change sides, go over, rat; recant, retract; revoke; rescind; (abrogate); recall; forswear, unsay; come over, come round to an opinion; crawfish, crawl. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Crawl |
| English words defined with "crawl": backstroke ♦ Crawled, crawling, creep, creeping ♦ Shug. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "crawl": Anvil Crawler ♦ ENERGY-CONSERVATION REPRESENTATIVE, EXCEPTIONAL METHOD ♦ free-style, fruit picker ♦ HARVEST WORKER, FRUIT ♦ Scuttle Hole ♦ Thermal Envelope Houses ♦ Worms. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Crawl" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. French (crawl), Italian (crawl), Spanish (crawl), Swedish (crawl). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | That's right, the same plants and flowers that saw you crawl from the primordial soup will reclaim the planet. (Batman & Robin; writing credit: Akiva Goldsman) I'll get even if I have to crawl back from the grave to do it! (Marked Woman; writing credit: Abem Finkel; Robert Rossen) ! Why, so you can crawl in after I've gone? (The Accountant; writing credit: Andrew White) Dumb enough to let a lizard crawl up your leg. (Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain; writing credit: Barry Glasser) I got to get into this dude's pelt and crawl around for a few days. (Caddyshack; writing credit: Brian Doyle-Murray; Harold Ramis) | |
Lyrics | You have to learn to crawl (Amazing; performing artist: Aerosmith) You fall and you crawl and you break (Complicated; performing artist: Avril Lavigne) I wanna crawl under your skin (Tell Me; performing artist: Billie Myers) I heard sirens there, the lights flash and crawl (I Did It; performing artist: Dave Matthews Band) You will fly and you will crawl (Even Angels Fall; performing artist: Jessica Riddle) | |
Clever | Church members are either pillars or caterpillars: the pillars hold up the church, and the caterpillars just crawl in and out. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Crawl Stroke Kid (1927) They Crawl (2001) Learning to Crawl (1999) Do the Crawl (1985) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | NOAA helicopter pilots do the darndest things! I think I'll crawl in this hole and find out what's there Photo #1 of sequence Operations off of SURVEYOR. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. | ![]() | Senior Airman Daniel Dance, Air Force Special Operations Command, draws a clean line through the low crawl obstacle of the Fitness Challenge during Defender Challenge 2000 at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, Oct. 30. Defender Challenge is the annual Air Fo. |
![]() | Religious liberty is guaranteed : but can we allow foreign reptiles to crawl all over us?. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Tori Amos | Women must understand that simply attacking or hating all men is just another form of disempowerment. A woman has to realize that when she makes a man crawl it doesn't give her power. All it will do is make her puke eventually. Rather than say--all men are bastards-- let's say--all men are infants, until they decide to be men--Calling them bastards is boring at this stage. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Then he entered through a gap in the fence into the inclosure of the elephant, and helped the (r)momes to crawl through the breach. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Workers in these jobs may have to enter various buildings, crawl spaces, or other sites that may be rodent infested. (references) | |
Construction and utility workers can be exposed when they work in crawl spaces under houses or in vacant buildings that may have a rodent population. (references) | ||
Infants with cerebral palsy are frequently slow to reach developmental milestones, such as learning to roll over, sit, crawl, smile, or walk. This is sometimes called developmental delay. (references) | ||
Economic History | Ghana | Internal transport had slowed to a crawl, and inflation remained high. (references) |
Vietnam | Instead of undertaking greater liberalization, the Vietnamese government retrenched and during 1998 and 1999 the pace of reforms slowed to a crawl. (references) | |
Japan | Together with the demands by manufacturers for just-in-time parts and components delivery from subcontractors, this results in huge numbers of trucks on inadequate urban roads and highways during daytime business hours, slowing traffic to a crawl in major urban centers. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Crawl" is generally used as a lexical verb (infinitive) -- approximately 57.92% of the time. "Crawl" is used about 366 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 57.92% | 212 | 20,813 |
| Noun (singular) | 27.05% | 99 | 32,870 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 14.21% | 52 | 47,145 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.55% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (common) | 0.27% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 366 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "crawl": australian crawl ♦ back crawl ♦ crawl along at ♦ crawl away ♦ crawl in ♦ crawl on all fours ♦ crawl on the floor ♦ crawl out ♦ crawl over ♦ crawl space ♦ Crawl stroke ♦ crawl through ♦ crawl to ♦ crawl to smb. ♦ crawl with ♦ crawl with smth. ♦ do the crawl ♦ front crawl ♦ go at a crawl ♦ go on a pub crawl ♦ make smb.'s skin crawl ♦ make the skin crawl ♦ pub crawl ♦ swim the crawl ♦ the crawl ♦ track crawl search. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "crawl": crawl-spaces. | |
Ending with "crawl": bar-crawl, dog-crawl, pub-crawl, reverse-crawl, slow-crawl. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "crawl"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaans | kruip (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | zvarritje (crawling, creep, creeping, dragging, lugging, procrastination, scuff, spreading, trailing), zvarritem (crawl over, creep, creep along, draggle, traipse, trapes), servilosem (lackey, lacquey), not krol, ngjethem (creep, quake, shiver, shudder), hiqem zvarrë, gëlon (abound, come in multitude, flow, swarm, teem, throng), ecje e ngadaltë, eci këmbadoras (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | حظيرة السلاحف, تنمل اليد (creep), تنمل, تقدم ببطئ, تقدم ببطء (inch, limp), سباحة سريعة, زحف (crawl on all fours, crawling, creep, creeping, draggle, grovel, march, scramble, trail), دبيب, دب (bear, creeping). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | унижавам се (abase oneself, decline, deign, eat humble pie, grovel, prostrate oneself, stoop, swallow one's pride), кроул, гъмжа (infest, pullulate, swarm, teem), гъдел ме е (tickle), влачене (haul, haulage, lug, shuffle, tow, towage, traction), влача се (linger, lollop, lounge about, plod, roll, shamble, shuffle, slouch, toil, trapes, trapse, wear away), лазене (scramble), пълзя (gad, grovel, ramble, ramp, run), пълзене (creep), плувам кроул. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 爬行 (Crawled, Crawling, Creeping, creeps, Crept, scramble, scrambled), 爬 (climb), 匍 (lie prostrate, to circle, to surround), ' (climb, cling to, dig up, hold on to, pull, push aside, rake, snatch, to strip). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | plazit se (creep, grovel, slink, trail), odplazit se (crawl away), lézt (climb, sprawl, worm), hemžit se (abound, Eddy, shoal, swarm, teem). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | krybe (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | kruipen (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | rampi (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faeroese | skríða (creep), krúpa (creep), grulva (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | سینه مال رفتن (Grovel), عمل خزیدن , خزیدن (Creep, Glide, Grovel, Ramp, Slime, Slither, Worm), شنال کرال . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | ryömiä (creep), madella (creep, cringe), kontata (creep), kompuroida (scramble), kömpiä (shuffle). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | ramper (creep), crawl. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | krûpe (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | kriechen (creep, cringe, grovel, to crawl, to creep, to cringe, to truckle, toady, truckle). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | σύρσιμο (crawling), σύρομαι (be dragged, creep, drag, trail). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | לשחות חתיר", לשרוץ (abound, be infested, breed, infest, pullulate, swarm, teem), לזחול (creep, cringe, worm), ל"צטמרר (creep, shake, shiver), שחית חתיר", זחיל" (creeping, slowpoke, sluggishness). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | mászás (clamber, climb, climbing, creep, scramble), kúszás (clamber, creep, scramble). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | merayap, merangkak (creep, cringe), melata (creep, slither), bergerak perlahan. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Inuktitut | paarnguqtuq (to crawl). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | crawl. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 匐 , 匍 (creep), クレブス回路 (checkroom, cleanser, cleansing cream, cleansing lotion, cleric, cloakroom, clone, close, closed, closed stance, closed system, closet, close-up, closure, Kraepelin, Krebs cycle, Kremlin, Kremlinology). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | ふく (additional, assistant, associate, auxiliary, bend down, clothes, collateral, compound, copy, crouch, deputy, double, duplicate, fall prostrate, good fortune, hide, lie down, prostrate oneself, stoop, sub-, submit to, substitute, supplementary, to blow, to dry, to emit, to spout, to wipe, vice-, yield to), ほく (north), ほ (a step, a stride, counter for steps, creep, ear, guarantee, head, sail, shop, store), クロール . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 기어가기. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | snaue (bathing, course, crawling, creep, creep as child, creeping, float, floating, flotation, glide, gliding, in suspension, scuttle; track of snail; swimming, scuttle; track; swimming, sidle, slither, slithering, swim). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Papiamen | gatia (creep). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | awlcray rastejar (creep, crouch, grovel, trail, worm), rastejamento (creep). (various references) craul, târâre (creep), se târî (creep, drag, grovel, jog along, jog on, plod, slither, toil, trail), se linguşi (fawn, jolly, palaver, slaver, spaniel, toady), se furişa (creep, filter, mouse about, slink, slip, sneak, steal, wriggle), se înfiora (creep, flicker, flinch, shudder, startle), merge încet (jog, jog along, jog on, wend), mãguli (flatter, soothe, tickle). (various references) расползаться (crawl away), тащиться (drag, draw, plod, traipse, trapse, trudge), кроль, кишеть насекомыми, кишеть (be infested, infest, overrun, pullulate, teem), затон (backwater), пресмыкательство, ползти (worm), ползать (creep, crept), ползание, плыть кролем. (various references) cr laidh, sn ig (creep, sneak), sn g (sneak), m gair (creep, handle clumsily, paw). (various references) puziti (creep), puzati (cringe, grovel), puzanje, mileti (creep), kraul, bauljati (grabble). (various references) arrastrarse (creep, grovel, haul, lug, pull oneself along, trail, tug, worm). (various references) krypa (creep, cringe, fawn, grovel, huddle, kotow, kowtow, trail), kräla (creep, grovel), kravla (clamber, grabble, scramble). (various references) yavaş ilerlemek, yavaş ilerleme, yağ yapmak, sürünmek (creep, drag, grovel, languish, rough it, trail), krol yüzmek, krol yüzme, kaynıyor olmak, karıncalanmak (feel benumbed, formicate, go to sleep, have pins and needles, prickle, tingle), emeklemek (crawl on all fours, creep), dolu olmak (abound, be filled with, be full, bristle, spill over with, teem), ağır gidiş. (various references) sьяrenmek (be at the end, creep), яorelmek (creep), emedeklemek. (various references) тягтися (drag, plod, tower, trail), кроль, кишіти комахами, волочитися, низькопоклонство (adulation, grovel), підлабузнюватися (adulate), повільний рух (creep, drag), повзати (creep), повзання (crawling), плазувати (adulate, back-scratch, creep, grovel, truckle), плазування (adulation). (various references) chỗ nuôi tôm sự bò, ao nuôi cá chỗ nuôi rùa. (various references) cropian (creep, grope), ymlusgo (creep), llusgo (drag, drawl, trail). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | correpti, correptum, correptus, repente, repere, repo, repo repsi reptum, repo, repsi, reptum, repsi, serpens, serpente, serpentem, serpentes, serpenti, serpentia, serpentibus, serpentis, serpentium, serpere, serpit. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "crawl": crawled, crawler, crawlers, crawlier, crawliest, crawling, crawls, crawlspace, crawlspaces, crawlway, crawlways, crawly. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "crawl": becrawl, outcrawl, scrawl. (additional references) | |
Words containing "crawl": becrawled, becrawling, becrawls, outcrawled, outcrawling, outcrawls, scrawled, scrawler, scrawlers, scrawlier, scrawliest, scrawling, scrawls, scrawly. (additional references) | |
| |
"Crawl" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: acrawl, cawl, Cawla, Cawle, chawl, Chawla, craal, cradl, cral, Crall, crauw, crawd, Crawle, crawp, crewp, cril, criw, croawl, crowl, grawl, Mcgrail, Rawl. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "crawl" (pronounced krô"l) |
| 4 | k r ô" l | scrawl. |
| 3 | -r ô" l | brawl, drawl, enthral, sprawl, thrall. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-l-r-w" | |
-1 letter: carl, claw, craw. | |
-2 letters: arc, awl, car, caw, lac, lar, law, raw, war. | |
-3 letters: al, ar, aw, la. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-l-r-w" | |
+1 letter: clawer, crawls, crawly, scrawl. | |
+2 letters: becrawl, clawers, crawled, crawler, scrawls, scrawly, warlock. | |
+3 letters: becrawls, callower, clamworm, clayware, cowardly, crawlers, crawlier, crawling, crawlway, lacework, outcrawl, scrawled, scrawler, warlocks, wrackful. | |
+4 letters: becrawled, cartwheel, caterwaul, clamworms, claywares, clearwing, crawliest, crawlways, crosswalk, flowchart, laceworks, leadscrew, lowercase, outcrawls, scrawlers, scrawlier, scrawling, screwball, workplace. | |
+5 letters: backwardly, becrawling, blackwater, cakewalker, cartwheels, caterwauls, clawhammer, clearwings, crawlspace, crosswalks, flowcharts, lawrencium, leadscrews, lowercased, lowercases, outcrawled, racewalker, scrawliest, screwballs, watercolor, wheelchair, wildcatter, workaholic, workplaces. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.